How Old Media Can Get Back in the Game
I write for a local newspaper, 24hrs, and a local magazine, Vancouver View.
The odd thing is, I don’t really read newspapers or magazines, I get most of what I need to know from the web.
Now that model doesn’t work for everyone, I get that, so I believe there is a place for print in our world – but that place is getting smaller.
SOME WORK, MOST DON’T
Free dailies, like 24hrs, are brilliant. They are tightly packaged commuter papers. You get the headlines, some features and basically just enough information to be able to read the whole thing cover to cover before you get to your stop.
It’s the big newspapers that are feeling the pinch. In the US, newsrooms are laying off staff as circulations shrink and revenues plummet. Craigslist’s free service is sucking the revenue out of the Classifieds, while the web is getting people their information as it happens, not a day or two later.
But there is a way for big daily newspapers to become relevant again. They have the staff, they have the resources, they have the content – they’re just not using it properly.
TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW WHEN YOU KNOW IT
Why wait until the next morning to publish your columnist’s insight on a big breaking political scandal or hockey trade? If it broke at 4p, we’re going to see it on that night’s news, hear it on the radio when we wake up and THEN read about it in the paper? The newspaper is 3rd in line. I’m over it by the time I get to you, there’s little new insight to be offered. BUT, if the paper would have published that news, as it happened, I would have caught it in my RSS reader and they would have been 1st in line, not 3rd.
For the older generation who can’t grab RSS feeds, and the web’s ability to spread news now, they can still get their paper the next morning. It becomes a “Best of” the website.
By having an instant online presence, and a morning paper, you’re effectively building a bridge between generations. Your brand now becomes valuable to those who look to the web for news. Newspaper newsrooms have a reliable, responsible and professional staff. Their writing is much more accurate and accountable than that which I read on blogs, but guess who gets to me first?
DONT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
Randy Michaels gets it.
This is how Newspapers can OWN the local, online video space: simply equip their journalists and production staff with mobile devices like these…..then get them out from behind their desks, and into the field…..pronto! [source]
Jeff Jarvis gets it too.
For today, a wired journalist without a camera and connectivity is like a hack without a pencil. [source]
The grand old dame of print gets it. The NYT abolished their online subscription model and opened up all their content for free.
In reaching 17.5 million uniques, the paper had its best month ever… Vivian Schiller, Senior VP and General Manager of the NYTimes.com attributes a significant part of the increase to the end of the subscription model called Times Select. Fueling the growth, she also cites popular multimedia features, blogs and a successful search maximization strategy. [source]
Video for a newspaper? Yup. They are a content provider now, not a newspaper. Instead of becoming nothing more than a 10lb Sunday paperweight, The New York Times has successfully placed a pillar of support in both the new media and old media worlds.
24hrs in Vancouver also successfully uses a multimedia approach. Articles often have mentions of web addresses where video and audio additions to the story can be found. The site also features it’s own quirky podcast courtesy of Guts MacTavish.
THEY’RE TRYING
Local newspaper, the Province is trying, but their The Newsroom feature is not what it could be. It’s infrequently updated and doesnt really offer anything of substance. Same with their Live @ Five feature which has been placed on hiatus for re-tooling. It was an editorial slap at the headlines of the day, but came off a little too flip and sarcastic to be taken seriously. Now they’re trying, I’ll give them that, but they don’t really “get it” – yet.
Radio is already starting to move in the right directions. News/talk radio stations are publishing texts of their newscasts, so even if I’m not listening to the radio, I can get the information I need – and the brand is reinforced as a reliable news source.
I use the web as an aggregator for all the bits I mention on air. Miss my show? No problem, look up my show notes and you’ll get all the pop culturology you can handle. My brand, and the radio station’s brand, is reinforced as a place to go to get “it.”
As it stands now, big daily newspapers are nothing but a rehash of wire stories I read online 2 days ago – but things could be different with a little forward thinking.
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